Schreiben gegen das Vergessen (Writing Not to Forget) - Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation

A man kneels on a stone square and wears a yellow high-visibility vest with the inscription "Write with" on his back. In his hands he holds a sticky board, which he puts straight in front of him. In the background, other people with high-visibility vests are standing and kneeling in the square. — 1/6

A participant of the writing campaign starts writing names, 2022. Photo: Florian Menath.

©Writing against forgetting

On the left of the picture a row of different information booths can be seen. In front of them, there are people who occasionally talk to the people behind the information booths. — 2/6

Various organisations took part in the writing campaign with information stands, 2022. Photo: Florian Menath.

©Schreiben gegen das Vergessen

The initiator of the writing campaign, Margarete Rabow, instructs volunteer writers. She can be recognized by a warning vest with her name on the back. In the background, many participants kneel in orange vests and write their names on the ground with chalk. — 3/6

Numerous volunteers and passers-by took part in the writing campaign throughout the day, 2022. Photo: Florian Menath.

©Writing against forgetting

Two people in high-visibility vests kneel on the ground and write on the floor with chalk. — 4/6

The State Rabbi Alexander Nachama and the Deputy Director of the Buchenwald Memorial Dr Phillip Neumann-Thein write names on the square, 2022. Photo: Florian Menath.

©Writing against forgetting

A violinist, an accordion player and a singer of the String Company Erfurt accompany the writing action musically. In the background, a toddler in a blue anorak can be seen standing free in the square and looking eagerly at the musicians. — 5/6

The String Company Erfurt accompanied the writing campaign Musically, 2022. Photo: Florian Menath.

©Writing against forgetting

The Lantag president Birgit Pommer kneels on the left and wears a pink anorak. Margarete Rabow kneels to her left and wears a yellow high-visibility vest. In front of them on the floor stencils and chalk writing. — 6/6

Lantag President Birgit Pommer receives a briefing from Margarete Rabow before she starts writing herself, 2022. Photo: Florian Menath.

©Schreiben gegen das Vergessen

Agnes Holzmann, deported from Jena to Theresienstadt on September 19, 1942, at the age of 79. Died there from hunger after a few days; Erna and Leon Heilbrun fled Nordhausen to France but were there again subject to NS persecution and took their lives in an internment camp in 1942 to avoid deportation to Auschwitz; betrayed by neighbours, Rosemarie Cohn was sent to Auschwitz and deported from there to Bergen-Belsen, where she died of typhus at the age of 17. These examples offer a brief impression of the persecution of Jews in Thuringia under National Socialism. Before 1933, over 6,000 people of the Jewish faith lived in this region, of which over a third perished by 1945 – at least 2,261 Menschen.

This is the result of recent research carried out while compiling a digital book of remembrance, which has been available online at www.juedisches-leben-thueringen.de since September 1, 2022. It contains the name, biographical dates, address, deportation site, and place of death of each individual victim. This new project commemorating those who were murdered forms an important basis for further explorations of Jewish history at specific place and in Thuringia as a whole. The book can be updated at any time.

Working with this book of remembrance, a special participatory event took place on September 19, 2022, in Weimar, which commemorated all of the people in Thuringia who died from anti-Semitic persecution and executions. On Stéphane-Hessel-Platz in front of the massive building of the former National Socialist Gauforum, their names were written on the pavement in white chalk. Previously the names of those deported and murdered were written on the ground at the main rail station in Erfurt, on Marktplatz in Meiningen, and on Johannisplatz in Gera.

In Weimar, all the names were photographed individually with a 16mm camera, and a film is being produced to document all 2,261 names. The entire writing event was streamed online. Various initiatives and institutions were present, providing additional activities and information; they included ACHAVA Festspiele Thüringen, Bürgerbündnis gegen Rechtsextremismus Weimar, Initiative Gedenkweg Buchenwaldbahn, and Klassik Stiftung Weimar.

The online book of remembrance and "Schreiben gegen das Vergessen" were made possible as part of a cooperative project of Erinnerungsortes Topf & Söhne, the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Landeszentrale für politische Bildung, and the artist Margarete Rabow. It was sponsored by the Thuringian Ministry for Education, Youth, and Sports as part of the "Denk Bunt," the Thuringian State Programme for Democracy, Tolerance, and Open-mindedness.